I was raised in a Christian home by a mother and father who loved Jesus. When I was six years old, I came forward during the invitation in a Church revival meeting. As a six year, old I could not have known everything about what it meant to be a Christian, but I was sincere in my desire to commit my life to serving God and willing for God to use my life any way that he wanted.

When I was 16 years old, I experienced my first personal crisis of faith. I worked at a summer camp where I interacted with staff members whose understanding of God was different from mine, and what I had been taught having grown up in the Bible Belt of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

For the first time, I questioned God’s existence. If God was not real, then I might as well live any way that I wanted and get out of life what I could. But if God was real that had to make a difference in what I did with my life. I went out into the middle of a big field surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. I yelled out at the top of my lungs. “God If you are real I have to know.” I did not see any bright lights or hear an audible voice but I felt Gods’ presence that night in a way that left no doubt in my mind that God was real. I knew that my purpose in life was to serve God to the best of my ability.

I had planned to go into full time Christian Camp work when I went to college. I was also planning to marry my high school sweetheart. I had my life all planed out and asked God to bless my plans. The summer before my senior year in college my girlfriend broke up with me. That impacted my work that summer at the camp. I was asked by the director not to come back. All of the plans that I had ask God to bless were crushed.

One afternoon I was praying. I was totally depressed. I was feeling a lot of anger and hate about what had happened with my girlfriend and my career plans. Then I came to the realization that the anger and hate I felt was the anger and hate that killed Jesus. I realized that the anger and hate that I was feeling was the same force that killed Jesus. Jesus was my friend, and I felt the same overwhelming grief as someone who had just shot their best friend. In the depth of my remorse, I saw a vision of Jesus standing by my bed. I did not recognize his face because it was beaten and scared beyond recognition, yet, at the same time, his face radiated total forgiveness and love. I said OK Jesus. I don’t have a clue what I am going to do with my life. I totally surrender my life to however you want to use me.

What God had done with my life since that day is absolutely amazing. God used my life to develop a Youth Mission Program, “World Changers” that has involved sending youth on Summer Mission projects for 30 years. I was a missionary in Innsbruck, Austria; a church planter in California and served all over the world as an Army Chaplain for 27 years.

When General Boykin commissioned me as his Chaplain and prayed for every soldier under his command to have the opportunity to know Jesus, I provided a copy of the New Testament and Rick Warren’s book, A Purpose Driven Life to every Special Forces Soldier who graduated from the qualifying course. This included soldiers form 94 countries, some of which were Muslim. The last class they took before receiving their Special Forces Tab was my class on the Importance of Faith in a Soldiers Life.

I have preached in guard towers in Tuza, Bosnia, in remote Firebases in Afghanistan, where I was in multiple rocket attacks and an RPG attack. I even preached in a Saint George’s Church in downtown Baghdad. I preached in Liberia during the Ebola Crisis. When experts in the American Embassy were saying that the Ebola virus might never be defeated, I wanted to give the Liberians hope. I preached a sermon in the American Embassy on David and Goliath and stated that there was nothing too big for God to defeat. Six months later there were no cases of Ebola in Liberia. It was in those dangerous places that God’s presence was so amazingly evident.

I have lived an incredible life, because I gave Jesus permission to use my life wherever and however he wanted to. Jesus can do the same with anyone who invites Him into their life.